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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Earl Grey & Poppy Seed Muffins

Keeping it simple. That's what I was talking about in my last post. And that's exactly what I did when I decided to bake these. Can you believe this is the first muffin recipe I've ever posted on this blog? What can I say, I'm a cupcake girl. Muffins always seem boring and naked in comparison to pretty cupcakes covered in icing and sprinkles. But now that I think about it, I probably eat more muffins on a regular basis than cupcakes. It's that wonderful trick you play on yourself with food items that are half a step away from having cake for breakfast. I'm a sucker for orange and poppy seed, blueberry and warm chocolate chip muffins with my morning coffee. But for some reason I almost never bake them.

I decided to adapt a regular orange and poppyseed muffin recipe, replacing the orange zest and juice with the citrusy fragrance of Earl Grey tea. The beautiful & girly Earl Grey Cake with Rhubarb Cream Cheese Glaze that I posted last year turned out to be a surprising favourite of mine, and I've been determined to bake more with the tea. I infused it into warm milk as part of this recipe and it filled the muffins with that unmistakably wonderful flavour and smell. Just lovely. The best part about muffin recipes is how easy they are to whip up; all mixed up in one bowl without the need for your electric mixer. No fancy paper liners either, just some small squares of baking paper.

I glazed the tops with warm marmalade, it's a fantastic extra touch of sweetness. Though don't be lazy like me and just brush it straight on to the tops of your muffins without stirring the lumps out of it. Of course you could just serve the muffins unglazed and slather them with a much larger portion of marmalade, which is what I did for breakfast this morning. These muffins beg to be enjoyed with a giant cup of tea.

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and line a 12-hole muffin/cupcake tin with liners or folded squares of baking paper. Warm the milk until it is nearly boiling in a small saucepan, then add tea bags set aside to infuse and cool. Place sifted flour, caster sugar and poppy seeds in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add milk mixture, butter and eggs and use a whisk to gently combine until smooth. Spoon mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Try your best not to over-bake them as it will dry them out.

Remove muffins from the oven, remove from pan and cool on a wire rack. While the muffins are still warm, place marmalade or apricot jam (about 1/2 cup) in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until runny. Brush the tops of each muffin with marmalade. Alternatively you can serve the muffins warm with marmalade to spread. Best served with tea. Can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for several days.

EDIT: You MUST check out this post from one sheepish girl, who made a not only made these muffins but also made the most perfect video for it. It is so darn adorable, I want to give it a hug and pinch its cheeks. Go watch it now.

Don't hate me, but I kinda prefer muffins over cupcakes. Only because I'm lazy so muffin batters are the go and I hate having to pipe icing. And there are so many awesome muffin flavours! I'm totally bookmarking this. I don't drink earl grey but damn I love baking with it!

I've been baking all my loaves of bread with poppy seeds recently - I just love the crunch. The glaze on those muffins looks gorgeous and love the combination with earl grey - the perfect tea time treat!

I just found your blog via Pinterest and spent a half hour just oogling all the beautiful treats you've made. I can't wait to try some of these recipes. You especially put a creative and whimsical spin on macarons that I haven't noticed on any other baking blogs. I'm so inspired!

i made these this morning! im actually not a fan of earl grey tea, but still wanted to try them. the flavour was delightful! I used brown sugar instead of caster... they tasted lovely but the colour wasnt as nice. i think a white frosting would be better if using brown sugar x

Seems like a lovely recipe. First time visitor too, have to say I love seeing a recipe with grams :) I was just wondering how long you left the teabags in the milk? Just the same time you would for making tea or the entire time the milk was cooling down?

Your photographs never cease to amaze me. You have a real talent for styling food. And these cupcakes- so beautiful. I can't wait to make them. I love how you wrapped them in parchment- so rustic and adorable.

I've been eying this recipe for a while now and with cooler weather approaching, it seems like the appropriate time to make these. I just have a few questions before baking.1. If I was going to bake this mixture as 1 cake (probably in a 20cm round cake tin) what timing would you suggest to bake it for?2. You've said to cook the mixture at 180 degrees, is that electric or fan-forced?3. Can other teas be substituted in place of Earl Grey? Unfortunately I don't have any Earl Grey so I was going to use T2's French Earl Grey instead.

I've made these twice in three days now :) I had to convert a little, since I'm a celiac, and I have never seen self-raising flour here in Norway, neither with or without gluten. So the first time I made them, I put in way too little baking powder and salt, and they got really dense. Should have picked up on that from the batter already, it was more like a pizza dough than a runny batter. They tasted great, though. I found that a tbs of poppy seeds was not enough to my taste. Also, didn't have jam/marmalade, so I served them with nothing on top. A little boring, but sweet and filling even so.

Today, I made them again. Got the "self-raising" right, used 2 tbs of poppy seed and added just a little more milk after I mixed the wet and the dry parts, to get it perfectly runny. They raised over the paper (I use a muffin tin, btw, glutenfree is notorious for not keeping together and getting wobbly and spilling so it's a great help) and they tasted gorgeously! The texture was also right, more airy. Served with cream cheese and more poppy seeds and some colorful sprinkles on top. That was my daughter's request ;)

Hey, I've made these twice now. Once I used the earl grey flavoring as recommended, and once I made them for my mother who doesn't like earl grey and I used a bigelow tea called Constant Comment, which is orange and clove flavored. Both turned out great. Also, I didn't have any self-rising flour so I used regular flour with 1 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp salt for every cup of flour. Worked pretty well. For the second batch I substituted sugar for splenda, and they baked just as well. In the US, we don't get caster sugar often, and I've just been using the larger US granulated sugar, and that works just fine. I also felt the earl gray did not infuse fully the first time, so the second time I heated the milk, put the tea bags in the pot while it was on the stove, and continued to heat it at a low level until I was happy with the strength of the tea. I think in the future I may also add some lemon juice or rind to the mix to make it more of a 'lemon poppy seed and earl gray muffin' recipe. Also, though I usually have a problem with mixes and recipes not making enough, I consistently get about 14 1/2 muffins out of this mix, which rocks! Great recipe!

Thank u for sharing the recipe. These muffins are indeed perfect for breakfast, quick and easy, and carries an uplifting scent of earl grey. They go very well with strawberry jam too. Perhaps I will bake it with a dollop of jam in the middle next time :)

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